The first Days of Knowledge ended 24 hours ago. We had over 50 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central experts from USA, UAE, RU, NL, BE, FR, IS, CZ, DE and DK to give more than 500 participants two days... (Continue reading)

Two days ago, my fellow MVP Mike Glue wrote a blog post about multi-level dependencies between AL extensions .
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Right before Christmas I saw a blogpost by Jeremy Vyska which got my attention. It highlighted some changes in the December version of the Business Central on-premise licensing guide
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No new Dynamics NAV this year

There will be no new version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV in 2017. That's according to the latest announcement from Microsoft, made at Directions in Orlando yesterday. Instead the next version of Dynamics NAV will be released in "Spring 2018". And it will share the name with what used to be known as Dynamics 365 for Financials.

So far it's common name is Dynamics 365 "Tenerife", but the "x" typically means that it so far only is the project name. Just as they used to call D365 for Financials for "Project Madeira".

There are also a lot of other interesting updates from Directions. If you have been part of the TAP/ACE program regarding "Tenerife" or if you have checked out the Developer Preview of the new AL/Visual Studio Code development environment, then most of it may not be news to you. But it's the first time we see anything "on paper" - so to say.

Dynamics NAV = Dynamics 365 for Financials =?

When the new version is released, then Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 for Financials will be one platform available both for on-premise (installed "locally") and in the cloud. On-premise will remain more or less "as-is", you can continue to host your own fully customized "NAV" locally or in a private cloud. Or you can leave it to Microsoft. You will even have the option of customizing it in the way you're used to. Microsoft still recommends Extensions and that you use the new development and design tools, which creates "customization's" almost in the way you're used to. Microsoft will also handle upgrades, so that you're always running on the newest version. You can even take your current customized NAV and bring it directly to Dynamics 365.

Whereas the previous D365 for Financials only had a subset of the functionality of NAV (no manufacturing, warehousing etc.), then the new version will have all the functionality.

The coming version is still code named "Tenerife", so my guess is that Navision/NAV as a name will history soon. I guess we have all expected this to happen at some point. I just hope that Microsoft is not going to rush into something, that we need to change in a couple of years again. Every name or branding change takes a long time to implement and primarily ends up confusing the customers, who often don't know what they have when they need support.

More time to prepare and train

Personally I'm not at sad about the "delay" (the new version was expected in Q4 as the previous years). I have been part of the "preview programs" and updated my development environment on Azure about every other month. But the "new designer" and the new Visual Studio Code will take some time to get used to. There is a lot of new "stuff" to learn and only so little time. So it gives me (and you) more time to get ready to when it really is going to happen.

Even if you may be able to host your fully customized "NAV" in the cloud, then I believe that most changes going forward are better made as Extensions.

It will make the sessions at the many NAV conferences this fall even more important. You can find a list of the upcoming events here at DUG in our NAV Event Calendar. Or check out the many free webinars at NAV Skills.